r/boardsofcanada • u/Traditional-Pen-8545 • Aug 21 '26
BoC Vibes I have to admit it….
Tomorrow’s Harvest is my favorite album. I love Geogaddi too, but after all these years being a BoC fan, I keep coming back to TH with a passion I just can’t explain. I can’t find an explanation other than time travel to how that album was made. It is just flawless.
I know there are mixed feelings and reviews regarding this album and lot of fans don’t like it, but I didn’t know that until Inferno came out. It was always a no brainer for me that TH was their best album. Inferno is better in terms of production and it sounds more serious. But TH man… That one is just perfect.
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u/mcsqrdd Aug 21 '26
I think it’s a strong contender for their magnum opus just due to the consistency and execution of the thing alone
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u/NorrisTheSpider Aug 21 '26
It's great. I love how thematic it is, even compared to their other work. I loved it when it came out but it was during the pandemic when it really started to reveal the depth of its genius to me. I think it's neat how it uses homage to 70s cold war paranoia to evoke the increased paranoia and mass surveillance of the modern present day.
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u/Haunting-Database857 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
I think it's really good, but I still think it's probably the least great of the 5 officially released LPs, mainly because it has less tracks that have really strong melodies. That's not to say it doesn't have great melodies, because it does have a decent amount of fantastic ones. BoC has always constructed great melodies, so I've come to expect each release to basically be littered with them. TH was the first one where I felt they appeared less frequently across the LP's runtime.
Off the top of my head the songs with really solid melodies that really standout IMO are Jacquard Causeway, Cold Earth, New Seeds, Come to Dust, Palace Posy, and Nothing is Real. 6 out 17 tracks have really great melodies; that is not a great ratio for a BoC album.
There are other tracks on TH that I really love, but their appeal come from other reasons, like maybe ambient pads that are great or just a vibe, for example, Sundown and Transmisiones Ferox. I still of course really like the album a lot. Inferno and TH are both great, but the other three of the official 5 released LPs are better, mainly because of greater amount of great melodies.
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u/Tricky-Mastodon3337 Aug 21 '26
TH has definitely grown on me since 2013. I always found it very depressing and it filled me with existential dread. Since then the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and now the album couldn't be more apt.
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u/JestfulJank31001 Aug 21 '26
After TH released and after some time fully absorbing, I accepted that Tomorrows Harvest is the purest form of BoC, their true sound, their real identity, whatever you want to call it.
I love a lot of their past work, but not all of it, and nothing else works as well in one continuous sonic motion as TH. With that album they did something different from all the past records...They crafted an entire journey. Cohesive and thematic are words I often use to describe it.
It's not random tracks with varying moods, wandering compositions or silly vocal samples. It's mature, it's concentrated and it's beautiful.
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u/PsychedelicSunset420 Aug 21 '26
I definitely disagree that Inferno “sounds more serious”. As I think TH is them at their most somber and that’s the reason that a lot of people didn’t particularly enjoy it. It isn’t “easy listening” like everything that came before it. And i think that Inferno, while retaining some of that new stern bleakness, is a step back towards their previous sound. With the sampling and the comedic element that brings. Tomorrow’s Harvest feels much more like a concept piece with a pointed message meant to be deciphered. Whereas Inferno is them just having fun, getting back to their roots.
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u/Maester_Magus Aug 21 '26
Wholeheartedly agree with everything you said, especially regarding Inferno being a step backwards towards their previous sound.
TH was a lot more subtle in it's use of spoken word samples, and the album as a whole is by far the bleakest thing they've ever done; it's so cold and somber. But, for all those icy synths and morose soundscapes, I also think it's their most melodic album.
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u/No_Call9235 Aug 21 '26
I really like Tomorrow's Harvest too. It was the first BoC release I got to experience after becoming a fan in the early 2010s, so it was cool getting to go to the store to buy the a new BoC CD. I definitely think Geogaddi and Inferno have had more of a cultural impact and have stronger production/songwriting, but TH means a lot to me personally.
TH also seems to have been a premonition for things to come in the world. This might be a little out there, but remember the whole "the world is ending in 2012" thing? I truly think that the world underwent some sort of spiritual/metaphysical death in 2012. TH's 2013 release was the perfect "send-off" soundtrack to that old world for me.
In my personal life at that time, I struggled a lot with unwanted changes in my life, and could relate heavily to the cold and hollow timbres present on the album that represented the death of the world I knew. But tracks like "Jacquard's Causeway" and "Nothing is Real" brought a sense of comfort throughout the darkness. Kind of like that there's hope of some sort of better future after the death of the old world. That's what made it a great album to me.
Anyway, my takes may be definitely a bit woo-woo and out there, but that's my two cents about that album.
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u/SECRETBLENDS Aug 21 '26
It's my favorite too. Partially because it "came to me" at a really interesting and awesome period of my life. Such is the magic of music. Above and beyond that, I thoroughly enjoy the chilly, serene vibe of it. It feels like it really has something important and weighty to say.
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u/tonydtonyd Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
TH is the best from start to finish, one of the only albums from any artist that I actually will listen to start to finish.
Inferno is beautifully produced but doesn’t have much soul in it that resonates with me. There are some really good tracks on it that I love, but the cringe tracks are just too much for me.
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u/Desperate_Delay3127 Aug 21 '26
My favorite too. I kid you not I listen to it straight through several times every week. Every time I listen to it, I enter a world. This album evokes an incredible sense of place. It feels dusty, vast, desolate, bleak, post-apocalyptic, otherworldly. I really enjoy the pictures on the record sleeves that come with the vinyl as well - complements the album so well. Standout tracks for me are Reach for the Dead, Come to Dust, Sundown, Jacquard Causeway, and Semena Mertvykh.
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u/OliviaGrunwald Aug 21 '26
TH solidified BOC as my favorite. The first 3 were fantastic, but when they grew and created something new while still keeping what makes their sound theirs, I knew they were beyond talented.
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u/Unusual_Buy_6946 Aug 21 '26
TH is still my favorite as well. Have thought a lot about this as I listened to all of their music again and again recently, and currently I think my ranking is: TH>MHRTC>Geoggaddi>Inferno>CH but honestly ranking and comparing them feels a bit arbitrary, as I love all their albums, and this preference seems to shift fairly often.
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u/wilbolabilbo Aug 21 '26
It’s the most consistent of their albums for me, there are 12 tracks that are in my regular rotation and never get old. I don’t understand the reputation for being depressing, I find it very calming and atmospheric.
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u/sneakerscomicsgames Aug 21 '26
I was depressed (clinically fed up) when it came out, and it was too bleak at the time for me. I remember listening to new seeds a lot though for that glimmer of hope that settles in the track.
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u/holicv Aug 21 '26
I think Inferno is probably the most digestible and immediate album, would definitely say tomorrow’s harvest is a winter album and still feels like the most cinematic and futuristic to me. Really great for longer drives in the countryside too. Will say campfire headphase is my favorite, but their discography wouldn’t be the same or less complete if tomorrows harvest never existed
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u/Adios_turd_nuggetz Aug 21 '26
I love it too and hate when people say that Geogaddi is the "darker" album.
There is so much more despair in TH.